South Africa

Pharmacy group Dis-Chem intends to list on the JSE, but only selected institutional investors willing to splash out at least R1m will get a chance to claim a stake in the company. A Dis-Chem spokesperson said the group had contemplated the need to list for some time and it had become an imperative in light of its expansion plans. "We have spent a lot of focus and management time on the listing over the past calendar year. We would like it to happen now, so that we can return our focus to growing the business."

Modern companies claim to seek innovation. But mostly they fear it. Executives tremble at the perceived threat of a cabal of bespectacled geeks whose idols are Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. So, the awful adage "disrupt or be disrupted" haunts the hallways of every modern firm. Executives spend a good deal of their time listening to conference speakers who’ve not invented a thing in their lives fulminating about how the world should reinvent itself.

The establishment of a process such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which marked the end of apartheid and the start of reconciliation, is needed to build trust in the fractured mining industry, says Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye Gold and vice-president of the Chamber of Mines. Cautious in not being too prescriptive about the process and how it would work, Froneman said the establishment of "TRC Two" would clear much of the bad blood and distrust that marked engagements between the companies, unions and the government on charting a sustainable and inclusive future for the industry at a particularly difficult time.

Beneficiation a step in mineral processing is discussed at just about every conference centred on Africa’s economy. Countries on the continent generally export raw mineral materials, only to import the finished products. And business experts, economists and development organisations have for years been hailing local beneficiation processing the materials in the countries where they are mined as the answer to Africa’s economic challenges. Shawn Duthie, an analyst at Africa Risk Consulting, argues, however, that when it comes to the continent’s economic growth, the beneficiation of natural resources might not be the best approach after all. During a panel discussion at today’s Thomson Reuters Africa Summit in Cape Town, he highlighted alternative approaches ones that have worked for other developing nations in the past.